Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(49)

Alvilda wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Elfriede shuffled out of the house, her face red and puffy. She nervously embraced me. I didn’t embrace her back. I half wondered if she was secretly happy to see me go, so I could no longer distract Jurij from his goddess. Because I had no doubt that Jurij had told her of how I begged for his love. He wouldn’t have thought it mattered at all. And to him, it didn’t.

“Good tidings,” Elfriede whispered. “Joyous birthday.”

I turned away.

Six specters appeared beside me, two grabbing my arms, the others before and behind me. They moved me toward the carriage as if I were a ragdoll.

“Wait!” called Alvilda. “I have to say goodbye!”

The carriage door shut behind me. I peered out the small window to watch as Alvilda chased after us for a bit, and Elfriede stood frozen in the doorway. Then they were swallowed by the trees, and the breaking light of dawn was replaced by the shades of darkness.

“Olivière.” I heard the whisper of my dream even then. Even when there was no hope for me to escape to it.



***



“Is the venison not to your liking?”

Since he had already noticed, I let my fork fall abruptly to the plate, taking a little perverse pleasure in the drop of gravy that spoiled the delicate roses embroidered into the too-white tablecloth. I tore at the trencher meant for scraping the plate of the meat’s juices and swallowed a chunk of the white loaf. It crumbled too easily in my throat.

“Olivière?”

I continued chewing and stared across the far-too-long table at the speaker. My dining companion. A set of black-gloved hands attached to a hazy outline obscured by a sheer black curtain. Actual sunlight was allowed into this castle, even if it was only the orange tint of twilight and not the bright white of true sunbeams, but it could do little to help me make out the lord behind the curtain. So this was how the masked ate when their goddesses couldn’t perform the Returning. At least this was how this one ate. I couldn’t picture Master Tailor bothering with this elaborate set-up in his home. I believed he ate only with Jurij and Luuk, or maybe at the Great Hall with other men or with Alvilda. And never with his goddess.

But this masked lord wasn’t one for propriety.

It was hard to decide when the lord looked most inhuman, walking around with a veil wrapped around his head showing me this or that room in the castle, or sitting leagues away from me at a dining room table, that long curtain hanging between us, for our first breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. The masks on the boys and the few masked men of the village seemed almost human in comparison, although they never actually resembled humans until the day of their Returnings.

I thought of the lord from my dream, and how he thrust his face in mine.

I nearly choked on my trencher.

The lord took great care to lay down his knife and fork so that the plate only clinked with the most dulcet of tones.

“Olivière? Are you all right?”

His hand motioned upward behind the veil, and one of the specters standing still at the far edge of the room came to life and arrived swiftly at my side to pour wine into a crystal goblet. I hated the foul taste of wine, but I grabbed it roughly from the specter and downed an entire glass until the bread worked its way free of my throat.

“Are you all right now?” The hands clutched the edge of the table. “Olivière? Answer me!”

“Yes!” I slammed down the goblet, hoping it would shatter, but it remained intact.

The hands let the tablecloth go and picked up the knife and fork again to cut the rest of the meat still on his plate.

I felt a bit light-headed. This was why I hated wine. I shoved the plate away from me. The flank of brownish meat was even more disgusting now that my nose was full of the stench of alcohol.

“Would you care for another dish for dinner?”

One hand stabbed at a piece of meat with the fork, and then the fork and the hand vanished behind the curtain.

I shook my head and used both hands to push against the table. “I’d like to be excused now.” I stood up.

Half-a-dozen specters surrounded me on either side before I could take one step.

“Sit down,” said the lord behind the black curtain. “Please.”

I did not. “I’m not feeling well,” I said through clenched teeth.

“You have not eaten enough. Food will improve your temper.”

A few well-placed stabs from Elgar the Blade to his abdomen might “improve my temper.” I took a deep breath. Just because I dreamed of a lord even more foul didn’t mean this one deserved my anger. I moved to sit, but I caught myself halfway. And why wasn’t he deserving? When I thought of how he’d acted when I’d begged for help, or how he assumed I’d perform the Returning … I had power over him. It was time he remembered that.

“Let. Me. Leave.”

The fork fell to the floor with an echoing thud. One hand gripped the tablecloth again. I found it strange to observe the specters looking almost lifelike all around me. They didn’t move to pick up their lord’s fork. They didn’t move to block me. In fact, a number of them stepped backward, clearing a roundabout way to the dining hall doorway. I smiled.

The lord loosened his grip on the tablecloth and picked up a napkin from beside his plate. “She means to let her retire from the dining hall for the night. And so shall I.” The napkin disappeared behind the curtain.